2 GOOD FILMS REPORT ON 2 GOOD DIRECTORS

Dave KehrCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Movies have an ability to report on their own making available to few other media, and those reports can sometimes be very good movies themselves. This month, the Film Center of the Art Institute presents a six-film series of movies about movies under the title ''Documenting the Director,'' beginning this weekend with the fascinating ''Signed, Lino Brocka'' by Christian Blackwood (6 p.m. Friday) and ''Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer'' by Kenneth Bowser (3 p.m. Saturday and 4:30 p.m. May 19).

Lino Brocka isn`t a well-known figure for American audiences, but in his native country of the Philippines he`s famous as both a filmmaker and a political leader, having been one of the principal players in the downfall of the Marcos regime.

Brocka`s radical activism at first seems at odds with the style of many of his films-he is a specialist in the broad, wildly emotional melodramas favored by the Philippine audience-but as Christian Blackwood`s documentary makes clear, Brocka`s political stance stems directly from his extreme personal sensitivity and uncondescending closeness to the popular taste.

Blackwood looks on as Brocka finishes one ''Dallas''-style melodrama and commences another project set in the appalling slums of Manila, thus subtly allowing the political context to shift from the upper-class excesses of the Marcos regime to the ongoing agony of the Philippine poor.

The glimpses of Brocka at work are amazing, catching him as he spins about the set assuming the role of each character in turn. Given the extremely low budgets of Philippine films, there is generally only one chance to get a take right, no easy task given the often untrained actors who make up the casts. Brocka`s response is to leave nothing to improvisation but to establish personally every detail beforehand, a technique that may account for the intensely personal nature of his films in spite of their almost entirely generic plots and characters.

Offering excerpts from a handful of Brocka`s old films-including the seminal ''Jaguar''-apparently filmed directly from a movie screen, Blackwood doesn`t spend much time on the admittedly difficult task of convincing foreign audiences of Brocka`s peculiar filmmaking genius. Instead, he concentrates on Brocka`s much more accessible political activity, allowing the director to recount his own exploits as the head of various strike committees and the guest of various Marcos prisons. Brocka speaks frankly of his homosexuality, which enters into his political views but does not define them. He remains a tiny, intense, indefatigable figure, an unlikely but unmistakable hero.

Preston Sturges, the great comic filmmmaker of 1940s Hollywood, is the hero of Kenneth Bowser`s ''The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer,'' a highly polished documentary destined for the PBS ''American Masters'' series. Without the advantage of a live subject before him, Bowser must rely on the testimony of friends and co-workers, filled out by film clips and still photographs. Sturges is heard speaking as himself only once, in a New York radio interview from the late `50s, and his voice does not disappoint-rich, full and ironic, it has both the resonance and playfulness of his wonderful movies.

No one has ever satisfactorily explained why the man who turned out such an astounding string of commercial and critical successes in the `40s-including ''The Lady Eve,'' ''The Palm Beach Story'' and ''The Miracle of Morgan`s Creek''-should find himself so suddenly and completely out of favor in the 1950s, to the point where he had to leave the country to find work. Todd McCarthy`s narration, in smoothly arranging the facts of Sturges`

extraordinary life, resists speculation, though the sense of almost classical tragedy planted by the title remains in force. So much beloved by the gods, he was in turn brought low by them-there appears to be no other explanation.

Bowser`s film will be followed Saturday by a 4:30 screening of the 1948

''Unfaithfully Yours,'' Sturges` final critical success and, as Bowser points out, the most autobiographical of his movies. The picture, which will be presented in a new 35 mm print, is worth 10 of pretty much anything you can see in a commercial theater this week.

The Film Center auditorium is located in the School of the Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson Boulevard. Call 443-3733 for more information.

''SIGNED, LINO BROCKA''

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Directed and photographed by Christian Blackwood; edited by Monika Abspacher; sound by John Murphy; produced by Christian Blackwood Productions. Running time: 1:30. Not rated by the MPAA.

''PRESTON STURGES: THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMERICAN DREAMER''

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Directed by Kenneth Bowser; written by Todd McCarthy; photographed by Dennis Maloney; edited by Ken Werner; produced by Bowser. A Barking Dog Productions release. Running time: 1:15. Not rated by the MPAA.